The GSS is excited to announce the appointment of Yuran Zhang as your new VP University and Academic Affairs.
A master’s student in Food Science, Yuran self-identifies as a passionate, conscientious and organized student leader. Read her appointment statement:
I’ve always been enthusiastic about advocating for students’ rights and building community on campus through events. Back in my undergraduate studies at Jiangnan University, I was a VP Multimedia Communication at the Students’ Union, where I was able to foster my skills in communication, problem-solving, and coordinating events. In 2019, I joined AIESEC Canada as a Business Development Manager at AIESEC Guelph and built connections with over 50 local companies. Through our efforts, we were able to assist companies to hire international interns and ensure their financial and healthcare benefits. That was the time I realized that I wanted to dedicate myself to advocating for students and young talents. Therefore, after joining UBC, I volunteered in various faculty events and joined the Faculty of Land and Food Systems (LFS) Graduate Student Council as a program representative. Now I hope, by joining GSS, I could contribute more to supporting students from diverse backgrounds and collaborate with awesome GSS members from different faculties.
I identify myself as a passionate, conscientious and organized student leader which I think is what you are looking for in a VPUAA. If I am fortunate enough to be elected, I’d like to bring changes to GSS through the following:
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- Make Peer Support service more accessible and more effective. Peer Support is definitely a great program but maybe less known within faculties. I personally think that it’s important to let students know there’s support here for them. This might be achieved by cooperating with the administrative coordinators of each faculty to circulate the information (which might also be helpful for hiring Peer Support specialists).
- Ensure graduate students’ benefits during COVID time. Being a TA and an international student in a research-based program myself, I could deeply feel the difficulties we’re facing because of the pandemic. The rising rents, confusing health care, unawareness of financial aids and losing sense of belongingness are the most common issues I heard from people around me. To better speak for UBC graduate students, we may collect results from university surveys and records of Peer Support.
Thanks for your patient reading. I’m looking forward to building a respectful and diverse community with you at GSS.
Yuran’s term as VPUAA will start immediately. Please join us in welcoming Yuran to the GSS Executive Team.
Thank you to the other candidates for their interest in serving the UBC graduate student community. We wish you all the best.
